Matter of Life and Death

Behind and beyond the merely material lies the world of signs. It is a world of life, meaning and participation.

The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.”

— Charles S. Peirce —

Look around. What do you see? And please, I don’t want you to name things. Rather, what is it what you are looking at? You are perceiving matter, right? Everything around you is matter. Even you are composed of matter.

This is the way most of us understand the world. Of course in your everyday life you live “normally”, so to say, and perceive all kinds of things: chairs, cars, people, words, symbols and so on. But if you stop to think about the question proposed at the beginning of this text, you would probably say that, in the last instance, you perceive matter.

I want to challenge that worldview. Instead of matter I encourage you to perceive signs. Everything that you see is a sign. Every single thing around you is a sign. Even your thoughts, actions and feelings about those signs are signs. You are a sign.

Of course signs have to be material in order to have an actual effect. But the materiality is not the interesting aspect. Sign is a representation of some “thing” to cause “something”. The some “thing” is called the object, which the sign seeks to represent. The “something” is called the interpretant, which is the effect caused by the sign. This effect might be a feeling, action or a thought.

Sign is a representation of some “thing” to cause “something”.

Think about the sound of a doorbell. The material sound itself is the sign. Behind that sound is some “thing”, that is, the fact that someone is at the door. This is the object of the sign. Beyond that sound is “something”, that is, your reaction to go and open the door. This is the interpretant or the effect of the sign.

So you are trying to see behind and beyond the merely material. Behind in order to inquire the object behind the sign. Beyond in order to see what kind of effect the sign would have. In other words, you look behind to understand what the sign is representing, and beyond to hear what the sign is conveying. What is its message?

Dog is barking and growling at you. That is a sign. Its representing a threat or a warning. Its effect, or message, is this: Keep away from me. Go away, which you do gladly.

But what about inanimate things like rocks? Are they signs too? Of course! Rock might signify a place of shelter for an animal. Moss sees a place to grow. It might be a signpost for a hiker. It could be the center of a religious ritual. Or maybe it tells an epic story to an inquiring geologist. You see how a simple rock has unlimited potential to tell us stories and cause various effects, simply by looking behind and beyond it.

There is a poetic beauty in signs. You see falling leaves drift by the window. This represents autumn, which is then the object of the sign. Understanding this makes you melancholic, which is the effect of the sign. The autumn leaves materially embody the qualities of red and gold, which functions as a sign for the objects of red lips, summer kisses and sunburned hands you used to hold. This all causes you to miss most of all your darling, which again is the effect of the sign. And all of this beautiful sign-action (semiosis) unfolds when the autumn leaves start to fall.

This last example is good at exemplifying how we are actually dealing with sign-action, that is semiosis, rather than with individual signs. Of course it is fun trying to spot and identify various individual signs, but in reality, the signs are always “dirty”. In reality sign is vague thing. It cannot be completely isolated or defined, as it always escapes and retains freedom in its action. It is more like a cloud of meaning, than a definite particle.

Nevertheless, semiosis still calls us to inquire into it. The semiotic world is trying to show you some “things” (objects) in order to convey “something” (interpretant). And as your whole experience is embedded in semiosis, or is semiosis, your attention is always fixed at various types of signs. Every single moment you are perceiving, experiencing and interpreting signs.

Suddenly the world opens up. The world around you isn’t just dead matter. On the contrary. It is literally speaking to you. It wants you to participate with it. It has immense depth and meaning. Everywhere you turn lies an unlimited potential for inquiry. At every single instant there is the possibility to dive into the endless growth of semiosis.

So what’s the matter?

Despite all of this, many of us only see death, the matter of death. Even if we stare at life face to face, we explain it away by referencing the matter of death. “My thoughts are just electric impulses in my brain.” “Animals don’t have feelings, they are mere machines.” “Love is caused by a molecule.”

This is tormenting us. Deep down we know how life is real. We know that we live in a living world. But still we adopt the materialist view and believe that dead matter is the ultimate bedrock of reality. We make ourselves blind to see anything behind or beyond it.

Most tragically we lose the sense of any purpose or meaning. For the materialists the world is just an enormous machine. Sure, we might learn how the machine works, but there is no possibility to go behind and beyond it. There is no way to change its course, which is prophesied to be the eternal heath death.

So what’s the matter? What do you choose to see? The matter of death or the matter of life?

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Sincerely,
Markus